


Patient X

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [110]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 09:27:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5329109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Patient X

_“They’re going to be calling me. I can feel it. And you of all people need to know about this because you’re the one that can do something.”  
“I’m not.”_

It’s the third time in the last week that she’s woken up in a panic that she’s late for work.

She sits up, gasping, certain that she’s slept through her alarm, or forgotten to set it at all. The first time this happened, she leapt out of bed and was half dressed before she looked at the clock and realized, no, it was barely 3am. This time, she recognizes the sensation and curbs the impulse to jump up, to _go_. She lies back down and takes deep, slow breaths, forcing herself to calm and wondering why in the hell this keeps happening. One was an anomaly. Twice was a coincidence. Three times?

As with the previous two incidents, she tries to remember what she was dreaming about right before she woke up. A recurring stress dream is the only explanation she can come up with that makes sense; it would account for the physiological responses, the elevated heart rate, a flight response translated by her rational brain as being late for something. She tries, but as before, she cannot remember the details of whatever dream she was having. There are snippets -- a car, she’s driving somewhere, chasing something or being chased, maybe both.

Then there is a flash, different from the last two nights, the sensation of looking in the rear view mirror, but instead of her own reflection, she sees Duane Barry’s face staring back at her.

She takes a shaky breath, suddenly cold all over and with a renewed desire to get up and run. But there is also a sense of relief because this, at last, might begin to explain things. Something in her subconscious is manifesting as post-traumatic dreams about her abduction. Not the _abduction_ , not the part she can barely remember, but the very terrestrial, very conventional trauma of being forcibly taken from her home and driven halfway across the state in the trunk of a car.

She rolls to her side, pulling the blankets more tightly around herself. With slow, deliberate breaths, in and out, she wills herself to settle, to recognize that she is safe, to remember that Duane Barry is dead and cannot come back for her. Gradually, her eyes close again, and her body relaxes back into sleep.

The thought comes to her just as she is drifting off, right on the edge of consciousness. _Maybe I should go back to Skyland Mountain…_


End file.
